Korean Chicken Stew - Dakdoritang

For the Rice

1. Cook enough rice to have 4½ cups of cooked rice. 1 cup of dry rice will yield about 2-3 cups of cooked rice depending on what kind you use.

For the Stew

1. Start by washing cutting all of your vegetables.
2. Slice the green onions and separate out the whites and green tops. You will use the tops for garnishing the final dish.
3. Cut the carrots, celery, and potatoes into a large dice. I cut the celery and the carrots down the center to halve it then cut it on a bias into smaller pieces. The potatoes get cut into cubes of about ½ inch in size. You can peel them or leave them as they are.
4. Season your chicken lightly with salt and pepper.
5. In a large stock pot over medium high heat, add some oil and the scallions, carrots, potatoes, celery, and ginger. Season lightly with salt and cook for 5-7 minutes to allow the flavors to develop. Add in the garlic and stir.
6. Make some room in the bottom of the pot (there won't be much room, do your best) and add in the chicken to get some browning. Cook it for 3-4 minutes. Flipping over when ready.
7. While the vegetables and chicken are cooking you can prepare your sauce. Mix together the soy sauce, honey, gochujang, and gochugaru. These are Korean ingredients. I get them at Whole Foods, you may be able to find them at your regular store and certainly at your local asian grocer. If you don't love spicy food, add less gochugaru. If you can't find gochugaru you can substitute ground chili powder (the one that is just ground chili, not the chili powder mixture with cumin etc.)
8. Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables and stir. Pour the chicken stock over the top and mix.
9. Cover the pot and reduce the heat to medium low. Simmer with the lid on for 20 minutes.
10. While stewing, you can plate up your rice into your containers. Each container gets ¾ cup of rice.
11. After 20 minutes, remove the lid, stir the contents of the pot and taste. Season with salt and pepper to taste. When I made this recipe I used chicken bone broth which is a tad bit thicker than regular stock. The starch from the potatoes should help to thicken the sauce. If you still have a very watery consistency, you can either add a small amount of a cornstarch slurry or allow the pot to boil with the lid off to boil off some of the water.

Plating

1. This recipe makes 6 servings. Each dish gets ¾ cup of rice and you can divide the stew evenly between the 6 containers. Top each dish with the chopped green onions.